The reader will permit me to fix his attention upon the epoch of the battle of Iganie, which was indeed the brightest moment of our war, the moment of the highest success of the Polish arms, the moment of the most confident hopes, when every Pole in imagination saw his country already restored to her ancient glory. Let us then, from this point, cast a look backwards to the commencement of this terrible contest. Two months before, an enormous Russian force had invaded our country, defended as it was by a mere handful of her sons; and any one who had seen that immense army enter upon our soil, could not but have looked on Poland with commiseration, as about to be instantaneously annihilated. In this expectation, in fact, all Europe looked on, and at every moment the world expected to hear of the terrible catastrophe,—to see Poland again in chains, and the Russian arms reposing on the borders of the Rhine. Such, in fact, were the expectations and even the promises of marshal Diebitsch. Providence, however, willed otherwise. The first shock of the Polish arms with the Russians taught the latter what was the moral strength of patriotism,—what a nation can do for love of country and of liberty. The fields of Siedlce, Dobre, and Stoczek, the first witnesses of our triumphs, and the grave of so many of our enemies, taught them to respect the nation which they expected to subdue, made them repent the audacity of having passed our frontiers, and gave them a terrible presage of how dearly they would have to pay for this unjust invasion of our soil. Battle upon battle was given, in which the enemy were uniformly subjected to the severest losses. The two great roads leading from different directions to Warsaw, on which they had followed the Poles, were covered with their dead. Thus subjected to loss at every step, the enemy reached at last the field of Praga, and there collecting all his forces in one body, under a tremendous fire of artillery he thought to overpower our small forces. But he failed to do it. The immortal day of the 25th of February was nearly the destruction of his enormous force, and, after fifteen days of severe fighting, that great army, which was designed to destroy Poland and to make Europe tremble, was brought to a state of extremity. The autocrat and his general blushed at the menaces which they had uttered. Poland believed that the former would reflect upon those bloody struggles and the immense losses which he had suffered, and would be unwilling to continue such sacrifices. Nearly 50,000 Russians were already sacrificed. How many more lives might he not still lose? The Poles, although conquerors, held out the hand of reconciliation, as the letters that Skrzynecki addressed to Diebitsch have proved. In those letters, written with the utmost cordiality, frankness, and directness, he invited the Russian commander to present the real state of things to the monarch, and to assure him that the Poles longed to put an end to this fraternal struggle. A word of justice, of good will, indicative of a disposition to act for the happiness of the nation, and to observe the privileges which the constitution granted,—a word of this nature, from the lips of the monarch, would have disarmed the Poles, blood would have ceased to flow, and those arms outstretched for the fight, would have thrown away the sabre, and would have been extended towards him as to a father,—to him, the author of a happy reconciliation. He would have been immortalized in history, and would have taken a place by the side of Titus.
Far, however, from that true and noble course, that proud autocrat, as well as his servant, Diebitsch, thought little of the thousands of human beings he was sacrificing:—far from such magnanimous conduct, he sent for other thousands to be sacrificed, to gratify his arrogance and ambition. He contrives new plans to pass the Vistula. It was not enough to have covered four palatinates with ruin on one side of that river. He determines to spread devastation and ruin upon the other also:—in fine, to attack Warsaw, and bury in its own ruins that beautiful capital, the residence of the successors of Piast and Jagellow, and where he himself could have reigned in tranquillity, by only having been just and good. In the execution of this plan of destruction, he was arrested and justly punished upon the glorious days of the 31st of March and the 1st of April, which, in conjunction with the recent revolutions in Lithuania and Samogitia, and the recent battle of Iganie, seemed to threaten the ruin of his army.
The Russian army was now in a state of the greatest disaffection, being posted in a devastated country, and having their resources for subsistence entirely cut off by the state of Lithuania and Samogitia. In addition to their immense losses in action, fatigue, sickness, and other inconveniences had reduced them to a state of extreme distress. Besides the influence of physical evils, there was a moral influence which impaired their strength, arising from a conviction which they could not avoid feeling, of the justice of the Polish cause. The Russian soldiers began also to reflect, that by thus serving the ends of despotism, they were only securing the continuance of their own servitude. These reflections were not made by the army alone, but, as we were secretly advised by persons coming from the interior of Russia, they were made there also, and were accompanied with the same sentiments of discontent. At St Petersburgh, as well as at Moscow, various discontents were manifested, and notices of such must have met the eye of the reader in the journals of the day. The senate of St Petersburgh presented to the consideration of the monarch the continual severe losses of the preceding years, in the wars with Persia and Turkey, and those of this campaign, (though much underrated by them,) which they had reason to fear would be still increased, and which might encourage revolutions in all the provinces. For these reasons the senate took upon themselves to advise some propitiatory measures, and some attempt by concessions to satisfy the demands of the Poles. The party most zealous in favor of such a course was composed of those who had relations and friends exiled to Siberia, on account of the revolutionary movement of 1825. The Russian patriots in general, not only thought it a favorable moment to attempt to effect an amelioration of the fate of those individuals, but they hoped that the restoration of their ancient constitutional privileges and nationality to the Polish provinces attached to Russia, would authorize a claim for equal privileges to the people of the whole Russian empire.
To these circumstances, is to be added that at this time the other cabinets began to feel dissatisfied at the course of Russia, and decidedly refused the requests of aid in men and money which she made on the pretext of former treaties. Every thing, in fine, seemed to promise a near end of the present difficulties. The Polish army, to whom this state of things was well known, waited impatiently for the moment of a decisive contest. One victory more, and the Russians would not be in a state to push their attempts farther. Nothing could then stop the progress of our arms, which would rest on the borders of the Dnieper, the only frontier known to our ancestors. One struggle more, and the darkness of ages, which had hung over the Polish provinces of the North, would be dispersed. The light of civilization would then spread its rays as far as the Ural mountains, and with that civilization a new happiness would cheer those immense regions. Upon the borders of the Dnieper fraternal nations would hold out their hands towards us, and there would be made the great appeal: 'Russians! why all this misery? The Poles wish to deprive you of nothing. Nay, they have even sacrificed their children for your good. Russians! awake to a sense of your condition! You, like us, are only the unhappy victims of the relentless will of those who find their account in oppressing you and us. Let us end this struggle, caused by despotism alone. Let it be our common aim to rid ourselves of its cruel power. It is despotism alone that we have any interest in fighting against. Let us mark these frontiers, which so much fraternal blood has been shed to regain, by monuments, that shall tell posterity, that here ended forever the contest between brothers, which shall recall the disasters that despotism has caused, and be a memorial of eternal friendship between us, and of eternal warning to tyranny.'
A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE FORCE OF THE TWO ARMIES AFTER THE BATTLE OF IGANIE.
The Russian forces, which commenced the contest on the 10th of December, amounted, as has been before stated, to about 200,000 men and 300 pieces of cannon. That army received two reinforcements, viz. the corps of general prince Szachowski, consisting of 20,000 men, and 36 pieces of cannon; and the corps of the imperial guard, consisting also of 20,000 men and 36 pieces of cannon. The whole Russian force, then, which had fought against us, amounted to 240,000 men, and 372 pieces of cannon.
To act against this force, our army, counting the reinforcements of 6000 men which it received before the battle of Grochow, had in service about 50,000 men, and about 100 pieces of cannon. Up to the battle of Iganie, fifteen principal battles had been given, viz. those of Stoczek, Dobre, Milosna, Swierza and Nowawies, Bialolenka (on the 20th and 24th), Grochow (on the 20th and 25th), Nasielsk, Pulawy, Kurow, Wawr (on the 18th and 31st), Dembe-Wielkie and Iganie. To these are to be added a great number of small skirmishes, in not one of which could it have been said that the Russians were successful. By their own official reports,—after the battle of Grochow, more than fifty thousand Russians were hors du combat. It will not, then, be an exaggeration to say, that their whole loss, taking into the account prisoners and those who fell under the ravages of the cholera, which had begun to extend itself in their army, must have amounted to between 80,000 and 100,000 men.[54] From the enormous park of artillery which the Russians had brought against us, they lost as many as sixty pieces. It may then be presumed that the Russian army remained at between 130,000 and 150,000 men, and about 240 pieces of cannon, not estimating, however, which it would be impossible to do, the number of cannon which might have been dismounted. Our army, which was reorganized at Warsaw, after its losses, was brought to about the same state as at the commencement of the war, that is, about 40,000 strong. The artillery was now augmented to 140 pieces.
Although the enemy's force was still sufficiently imposing, the reader will permit me to say, (and in fact we did reasonably calculate thus) that as we had fought with such success against the enemy in his unimpaired strength, we might with confidence promise ourselves a certain issue of the conflict in our favor, when, with his forces thus diminished in numbers, sick, discouraged, and discontented, we could meet him with the same and even a stronger force than that with which we had already been victorious, animated too, as we now were, by the inspiriting influence of our past success, and aided by the terror with which our arms had inspired the enemy.
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